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I started up a new campaign last night with my shiny 2nd edition hardback. One of the players asked to play Hoarder and I was up for it, but when we got to Hx things got bumpy. All the other players are using the new HX system, which doesn't involve them giving any numbers to the Hoarder, and then the Hoarder is giving numbers to everyone else they don't need. Anyone got an idea how to bridge the gap? Has this come up for you? ( I imagine this affects other LE Playbooks from 1st ed)

Years later, we have dusted this off to give it a second go, with spectacular results!

The PCs were:Nanette the Blade, with grace and sword-binding.Dr. Hughburt Starling, with necromancy and instincts.

They started high up on the balconies of a tall tower -- a highrise made of stone, except it's shaped like an enormous rib, and here hundreds of floors up it's curving to a point. They were in pursuit of The Brundlewasp, a person with the head of a wasp. It had torn its way through the apartments and tenants of the building. Unbeknownst to them, but soon to be knownst, Virk -- the 'owner' of The Brundlwasp -- was slinking up in their wake, trying to stay hidden.

Nanette tried to interrupt The Brundlewasp's ascent to the next-highest balcony, but failed. It sent her sprawling, went up, and stormed into the apartment above to continue its tear-assery. Dr Starling got a boost and intruded on the balcony; he was in the clear as long as he didn't draw attention to himself.

The apartment was nice, or would have been, but it's smashed to hell now and The Brundlewasp is in the dark somewhere tearing its tenant apart. Dr Starlingsizes the situation and deduces that he'd have to lure The Brundlewasp out with bait. He jumps on the bed and makes a lot of racket. It works, of course. The Brundlewasp attacks him from darkness but he interrupts its attack by getting out of the way, confusing it for a minute. He's able to scoop it up in the bedsheets. Nanette conks it on the head while it's helpless and it curls up in a fetal position and sulks.

Dr Starling goes off to look for loot in the apartment and finds some treasure to examine later. Nanette stands over the wrapped up Brundlewasp. Virk comes into the apartment. Nanette tries to size him up but fails, inadvertantly giving away her own vulnerabilities -- her blood is still flowing freely from The Brundlewasp. Virk offers to buy back his Brundlewasp but our heros aren't having it -- they're fulfilling a promise to take it to Professor Grimwald (Doctor of Entemology and Sunspritology).

Later, our heros take an overcab -- a canister with seating for 12, except it has large bird wings and is steered telepathically by the conductor. They fly out to the Collegium Imperialis District to find Prof Grimwald. This district is characterized by spired jenga-type buildings jutting up at odd angles to each other, and everything looks both cutting edge 'for its time' but also incredibly dated these days. The professor is at The Focus, a big building with a telescope, and his orderlies take The Brundlewasp off our heroes' hands.

While there, they hear about Magpie Pollintwist (a seer/mountain witch who's always in the market for saps to do dirty work). They also get a look at, and detailed esoteric rundown about, the Starfish Nebula -- a distant space cloud where stars and blackholes are being born.

Later, they examined their treasure...

Dr Starling has enough to devote himself to pursuing his own hobbies and interests; he marked towards adding a new skill (it will be Wizardry).

Nanette the Blade had enough to lay the foundations of her estate. She bought a country parcel with vineyards, orchards, spice fields and a stream filled with fish and salamanders. Unfortunately, it's predated by a breeding pair of burnished jackals.

End of session. Was a really good game.

NotesWe played with the original playtest rules, not the 'Wicked New Direction' rules. Mostly because the playtests rules were all in one packet and I didn't want them flipping between 2 packets and getting confused. Also because I don't quite understand how the moves work in the Wicked packet (your wins, your losses, etc).

When a character wanted to boost himself up onto the balcony our monster had just ascended, I said he was likely 'intruding somewhere he wasn't expected to be'. I thought that was clever.

'Size Someone Up' says you can be sizing up 'something', not just a person, so we played it as reading a sitch. It was awkward, but not terrible.

Vincent's essay on improvising was very helpful. He mentions it in the GM section. I tried to add 'but' into as much as I possibly could.

One of the characters started with treasure, but it reads like it's treasure that's been examined already (it's some rare spices). Wasn't sure what to do with that. I told her she could have a +1 if she brought it into play somehow, which we promptly forgot about.

I've found (for my games) when you say it's going to take a long time, its got to be something more like infrastructure, or something that requires a lot of hands involved. This is because a session in my games normally span a few hours, but rarely cover more than a day or two. Sometimes we pass time between sessions, but that's basically the only way to ever hit this particular requirement.

The cost in jingle requirement can be satisfied by just setting enough aside, meaning more time will be spent NOT working on the project, but rather preparing for it by doing other actions and putting more and more barter aside for it. This is fine if the project is something that can show up easily when the barter is ready. For something that makes a lot of sense, for others... well, maybe I want the player to actually do something on the scene.

That's what it takes X number of tries is for in my opinion.

If someone is trying to grow a replacement organ in a dead corpse they're keeping on life support for example. Maybe they have to find someone near death, or just died, hook them up in time and then do the weird gross science to them. This isn't just barter, it isn't just time, the player knows the first few times are doing to mess up. (some of the attempts can happen off the scene of course, but they should be represented at least a few times in player actions). Most importantly, however, NPCs should react to the fact he's stealing corpses, someone should come looking for the dead, someone should react badly to the idea, rumors should start to spread about the savvyhead with a garage full of corpses and people should react appropriately to the knowledge/ rumors. All the while you tease the player with new details as they get closer to their goal. This might not take a long time, it depends on the supply of corpses. If those dry up, what will the player do to get more?

Edit:

Basically, if the Failures can affect the story, maybe this is a good idea. Both of the other options... nothing fails. It's just a matter of time or money. In this case, you're saying they MUST FAIL, and we care because those failures have an impact.

You want to build an airplane, you say? It'll take many tries to do that... So who's going to do the test flights?

You want to try to replace the air-filters, you say? It'll take many tries to do that... So what sections of the ship are you going to test that in?

You want to summon a monster and keep it under your control, you say? It'll take many tries to do that... So where are you going to try these summons, what are you going to try to summon, who's going to protect you when it goes wrong?

You want to create a tasteless odorless poison, you say? Who/what are you testing your poisons on before you get it just right?

I think the best thing to nail down with it's going to take several/dozen/hundreds of tries is "what's the downside of trying again?" At its most basic, this could be viewed as already being a combination of expensive and time consuming, but this option is better use when even making an attempt has some weighty (and irrevocable) consequence. Like, sure, the Savvyhead can construct a fully functional cyber-arm, but actually getting it properly hooked up requires, well... "experimentation." And it turns out that if it doesn't work, it fries the attached nerves, and thus really can't be attempted again on the same subject. See where this is going?

A player of mine is playing a Savvyhead, and I was looking through the workshop rules to get ready for answering when they want to make things. The "it's going to take several/dozen/hundreds of tries" requirement - how does it work compared to the other requirements? What I mean is, if having to make a bunch of tries at something takes time, wouldn't that be "Itís going to take hours/days/weeks/months of work"? If the materials would add up, isn't that "Itís going to cost you a fuckton of jingle" or maybe "First you'll need to get enough materials to cover your early attempts" if it wouldn't necessarily be too expensive? I could see how this would play out if it's an infirmary, since having to get a bunch of people to work on would be pretty complicated but for creating stuff what does fulfilling that requirement look like?

A smaller question - what's a good base amount to set for "fuckton of jingle?" I've gone with 5 - the Savvyhead will probably have to do a gig or two or get other people to pitch in but it's not too high I hope. I could always lower or raise it for individual projects. What have you gone with when you chose this option as a requirement for a Savvyhead wanting to make something?